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The drama in the first series revolved around CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and her belief that Lewis’s character, Nicholas Brody, had been “turned” during his captivity and is working for al-Qaeda.

McCarthy said the scenario was unrealistic. “If you’ve completely lost your sanity - which wouldn’t be surprising under those circumstances - then maybe you might come round to your captors’ way of thinking.

“But you wouldn’t be able to function in the way Brody does: a largely efficient, reasoning character.

“It all seems so mad, the whole bloody plot. It seems ridiculous. Stockholm Syndrome can happen, of course, but I don’t think it would happen through appalling torture, frankly.”

Lewis has said that he read the memoirs of Brian Keenan, McCarthy’s Beirut cellmate, as part of his research for the role.

McCarthy acknowledged that some scenes in the drama ring true, particularly those in which Brody struggles to adapt to “normal” life.

“Lewis did really well capturing the sense of confusion I felt on coming home. There’s a scene where he’s beginning to cut his hair and shave, looking in the mirror, which really grabbed my attention,” said McCarthy, a journalist who was abducted in 1986 and released in 1991.

“He captures that sense of looking at yourself and beginning to think about yourself in a completely different world. Suddenly you’re a free man, you’re theoretically safe and you’re beginning to try to adjust to that world.

“When he’s on his own, he goes into dramatic flashbacks, which I never had, but I could believe in someone treated as badly as his character.”